Canadian Cronuts Found not Guilty in Food Poisoning Controversy

Fans of the novelty pastry can rejoice. It was not their beloved cronut (nor its Canadian knockoff) that made hundreds of people sick last week at a national fair in downtown Toronto. The culprit was much more appropriate, given the setting.

Fans of the novelty pastry can rejoice. It was not their beloved cronut (nor its Canadian knockoff) that made hundreds of people sick last week at a national fair in downtown Toronto. The culprit was much more appropriate, given the setting.

Which is to say: It was the maple bacon jam. According to Dr. David McKeown, Toronto’s medical officer of health, lab results indicate that the jam, used as a glaze on top of the cronut burger, "is the cause of food-borne illness at the Canadian National Exhibition." (Initial test results on Friday blamed the Staphylococcus aureus toxin for a rash of food poisoning that caused vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain among the fairgoers; in total, 223 people reported feeling ill.)

Epic Burgers and Waffles, the booth that served the cronut burger, has since reopened on the fairgrounds, with one very obvious item missing from its menu. (The cronut burger was actually a combination effort between Epic and a bakery in Toronto's Queen West district, Le Dolci, which has been Toronto's go-to source for imitation cronuts. Le Dolci supplied both the jam and the cronuts. Epic took care of the meat.)

Epic Burgers moved to distance itself from the cronut burger-inspired ire with a sternly-worded Facebook statement that explained the eatery's owners have "decided to remove the Cronut Burger from our menu and we will no longer do business with the aforementioned supplier."

As for Le Dolci, it is no longer serving the jam and has scrubbed any mention of its imitation cronuts from its website. Global's Jonathan Proskow reports Canadian public health officials just announced the bakery has voluntarily closed pending an investigation.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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Connor Simpson is a former staff writer for The Wire. His work has appeared in Business Insider and City Lab.